


The Funhouse

by NancyBrown



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Supernatural Elements, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-24
Updated: 2011-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:18:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time, it was dark. The second time, it was worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Funhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for pocky_slash's writing chat thingy. Prompt: the other side

The first time, it was dark.

The second time, it was worse.

Suzie stared out through a funhouse mirror, the world surrounding her visibly but set askew in bending angles, distorted faces and shapes. They walked past her personal prison cell, caricatures of human beings. She could scream at them all she wanted. She could beat her useless fists against the barrier. Nothing changed.

Given a choice, she preferred the darkness, but Suzie didn't get a choice, not like that.

For a while, she thought she was being punished on her own, a special hell for a special sinner. Then she was no longer alone, not really. She watched bubbles forming around the dead: that Rhys, who flipped back to life like a switch; Beth, who floated past her, frightened and alien and strange until she was out of sight. Owen never joined her, went straight to the darkness, the holding bin as Suzie thought of it now. Of course Jack only went to the holding bin, never into this prison, never into this awful in-between.

When Toshiko died, her bubbled formed next to Suzie's, and finally, Suzie had someone who could see her, hear her. Tosh blinked eyes that were not real, opened a mouth that wasn't matter. "Suzie?"

"Welcome to Hell," Suzie said through her cracked mirror.

Tosh twisted, her body no longer imprisoned by the geeky awkwardness Suzie had pitied on her better days and held contempt for on the rest. Tosh-that-lived had stumbled. Tosh-of-the-now swam like a fish's first taste of the ocean, joy on her face as her bubble danced through the Hub, unseen by their grieving colleagues. They hadn't cried for Suzie's death, she remembered with annoyance.

"We stay here?" Tosh asked at last.

"Forever." She attempts to remember scorn and sarcasm enough to fill her voice with it.

"We get to watch over our friends? We get to be with them?" Tosh asked, and Suzie thought she knew that tone, remembered what it meant, even as a third bubble began to grow beside them.

Suzie tried to growl, but it came out empty as Toshiko said in awe, "We're in Heaven."


End file.
